Let’s make India better!

A country that has 1 billion population, 26 crore people living under poverty line, not enough potable drinking water for everyone, basic infrastructure problems of roads, power and education, so many court cases in backlogs.. what is the most important thing that we really need? I would think moral policing. Don’t agree with me? At least our government does! Government really needs to make sure what we are viewing on the television, if I am close to my spouse in the public and if I am dancing in the pub after 11PM!!! This is the MOST IMPORTANT thing that needs to be addressed. If Richard Gere, the guy who comes to India to help the country fight against AIDS and other issues, how dare he kissed Shilpa Shetty? (Though she does all “moral” things at screen with our supposedly “patriotic” heroes but thats besides the point) Now this is a BIGG problem! We need to get our guards up and fight against it. What crap!

I heard a even more surprising story yesterday. Google employees in Bombay were attacked by Shiv Sena supporters because there was some raunchy content on Orkut! They beat up the security guards and by mistake beaten up the Yahoo employees thinking they were working for Google. It sounds funny but is this kind of crap we want to live with? Police coming in the Chennai pubs and beating people? Schools and colleges defining the dress code? Bangalore pubs getting closed at 11PM? Government banning AXN and FTV? Is it democracy or autocracy? Just give us a working infrastructure, environment to live a comfortable life and leave the moral policing on us. We know best what is good for us.

Richard, Google, We are ashamed and embarrassed for what happened. Please be assured that common man is with you. Our intellect and reasoning is still intact. We just do not know how these clowns and corrupt politicians get elected and make fun of our democratic system. It will take time but we will figure it out.

Talking about Orkut, it seems two girls in Brazil were on Orkut and they made friends with a complete stranger. One of the girls agreed to meet with him and got raped. When the other girl was asked questions about this online behavior, she said, “The risk of getting raped is far far lesser than passing your life without getting noticed!”. Again, can we blame Orkut for it? It will be like Burkhas are safer for women and it will save them evil men. I do not think that rape rate in Burkha countries is lesser than non-burkha countries. The only way to deal with it is by empowering women, creating a safer environment, better law enforcement and a better community. Anyway, this does ask for a separate debate and I will reserve it for another posting.

Update : Arun gave me some interesting links on the same topic. Vir Sanghvi wrote an article on moral policing in Hindustan Times.

Pratap Mehta wrote on Indian Express.